after instaling win xp it got rid of linux in the OS selection
 

hey

i have just installed windows xp on my computer and now when i start the thing up the only OS's i can open are windows 98 and windows xp and linux is no where to be seen

befor i installed xp, i had the option of linux and windows 98. after only windows xp,98

i didnt remove any HDD and the HDD i installed winxp on is seperate to the linux HDD witch is seperate to the win 98 HDD, i did no reformatting or anything.

is there anyway to recover linux or have i lost all my hard work forever?

thanks for your time

Hi,

And welcome to LQ!

What distro have you got installed, which boot-loader are/were
you using? Chances are that you can just boot into your Linux
install using your install CDs recovery mode, and re-run the
install for the boot-loader.


Cheers,
Tink

It's all still there. When you installed windows, it write it's own bootloader to the MBR (overwriting the linux bootloader).

Search these boards. That problem comes up every other day. There are many posts detailing what to do to fix it.

solution
 

This is because usually XP erases your linux boot loader from the disk and replaces it with the autoboot option of Xp or somthing like that.

ok thanks for all the help so far

iv ran the linux rescue and can see i still have my info still there,i still carnt seem to get the linux OS running tho,
i was running the GRUB bootloader befor, im pretty sure. and i have no idea what a distro is..

my next question is how do i install GRUB again from the cd? do i have to go into install or can i do it in the linux rescue? i only get a command line in linux rescue.

thanks

grub is still installed as well, you just need to configure it again....i think (depending on the distro, such as suse, fedora core, ubuntu, slackware) you can do it from the rescue disk...type grubconfig and it should walk you through the setup again.

"distro" is short for distribution - i.e. the version of Linux you use; Mandriva, Fedora, whatever.
The answer to your next question relies (heavily) on your distro, which is why you were asked.

Try grub-install (That should put grub back into the MBR). Then (while
you're still there, edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst to also include
eXPeriment alongside Linux and winDOHs98


CHeers,
Tink